About: Artist Ronan Kyle Peterson

Nine Toes Pottery North Carolina
BA/University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Ronan grew up in the western mountains of North Carolina. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and graduated in 1996 with a B.A. in Anthropology and a minor in Folklore. His interest in folklore led him to the John C. Campbell Folk School where he began to take classes in ceramics and other media. He then moved on to attend the Penland School of Crafts where he continued his study of pottery. Initially he intended to stay for a two month concentration in wood and soda fired pottery with MacKenzie Smith, but two years turned into four years. After his concentration he applied for and was accepted into the Core Student Program at Penland, where he has had the opportunity to study with a number of internationally known artists.

"I enjoy using thick lined contours and a fullness of volume in my ceramic vessels. I hope to translate and abstract budding leaves and lichen encrusted bark, and assemble a collage of interpretations of these natural phenomena. I like to take bits and parts, magnifying some diminishing others and assemble them into a vessel worthy of use and destined for contemplation. Through my ceramic objects, I hope to relay a narrative of the natural world, and through the interaction of the user and object, provide a field for the greater narrative of the relationship of the user to the maker."

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